Moved'd'd'd

I'm writing this from the kitchen of my awesome new house. We moved a lot of stuff yesterday and are going to move a lot more stuff today. The closing went fine, and we even got some money back (they overestimated how much we'd have to pay in fees and such by about $1500...sweet!). The cable guy doesn't come until Wednesday, so right now I'm pirating St. Paul Public School internet (they have a school right across the street). Only problem is that they have useful sites like Facebook blocked (AND IP proxy sites I could use to go around their firewall blocked), so I'm banned from FB land until tomorrow.

This afternoon after moving more junk I will go get Etta the dog and bring her home so she can chew up all of our stuff. Awesome.

A Number of Life Altering Events

Sorry for the lapse, folks...a lot has been going on lately. And honestly most, if not all people who read this are on Facebook so you probably know this already. Anyway, to sum it up:

1) Moving to a house we will own in one week.
2) Sold Alison's car. We are now a 1-car family.
3) Adopted a new puppy. Etta will be coming home with us next Tuesday.
4) I bought a sweet, giant computer (The dell version of an iMac, 24" monitor quadcore stop me I'm drooling computer)

So this next week is an odd transition period of packing and planning and waiting. Luckily, there's plenty to keep me busy. I'm visiting Eau Claire for the first time in a loooong time on Monday with my brother-in-law and mother-in-law for a personalized campus tour as he chooses a school to attend. If you're still in Eau Claire, give me a holler (although I don't know if there's anyone left that would holler at me...Boll I suppose, but he'll probably be working). Add to that the end of quarter 3 at work and before you know it it'll be closing day. Yikes!

Right up my Alley

My beloved Midwinter teacher's convention was marred by a lovely head cold. This has happened before...I think my body senses that I am getting ready to relax for a couple days and says "...not so fast!" Still had a decent time though. The experience for me is no doubt different from a lot of district teachers. You see them walking around in their packs, making lots of noise...and then there are folks like me who are the lone wolves, the only music teacher in their school. Sometimes I can't wait to have another music teacher to have someone to commiserate and collaborate with, and sometimes I enjoy my status as "the music guy," because it is totally and completely mine.

Went to 1/2 Price Books last night and found a fascinating read, "Baseball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Batter's Box." It really places baseball as a thinker's game. It contains a bunch of essays related to philosophical baseball situations and the grander ideas behind them. Such as: discussing "Home plate," and the whole concept of "home." Or the contraction of the MN Twins and Utilitarianism. Or my favorite so far: faith and Cubs fans. It's pretty great.

It's almost officially official now

After a little bump in the road, we're back on track for the whole house buying thing. Turned out the mortgage program we are using to get a sweet deal does not allow rent-back agreements. That meant that the original plan of closing March 2nd and having the seller rent back from us until May wasn't going to work. Instead, we're closing on March 30th, and that will be that. Alison and I will be home owners by the end of March...assuming none of the following happens:

1. The appraisal of the house is significantly under what we're paying for it (i.e. they won't give us a loan for 188k if the house is only worth 175...that would suck, but probably won't happen)

2. The bank decides that we are not worthy of their loan

3. The world explodes

We seem to think that we look pretty good on paper, so we are pretty confident that this will all work out. What's nice about this change of closing date is that it falls right in the middle of my spring break, which will make moving less stressful. Sweet. By the way - anyone who's around and wants to help haul crap will be rewarded with some sort of food and beverage to be determined.

Woohoo!

Plug your ears!

Today is monumental: I will be playing the flute and the clarinet in public. Yikes. Our school is having a 10-years and we haven't gone bankrupt celebration (quite a feat for a charter school, actually). The boss wanted music, so I got 2 pairs of high school woodwind players to volunteer to play duets. The music we settled on could work as a duet, but sounded better as a trio...enter Mr. Bents. It should be fun.

The in-laws drove by our new house last night and reported that there's a SOLD sign on it. That's pretty sweet...we'll have to go get a picture.

Other than that not too much to report.

I used to blog more

"Blog"...it's such an ugly sounding word, and even uglier sounding when used as a verb. "What are you doing?" "Blogging." Blech.

I've been reading over entries from 2006 for some strange reason. Some startling conclusions:
1) I wrote with relative frequency
2) There was actually some interesting content

Will I get the band back together and start blogging more? No promises. If nothing else it serves as a nice chronicle of the passing of days...a diary of sorts that everyone can see. I remember events that I would otherwise forget by looking back.

So today I participated in a focus group for SmartMusic. The actual session was nothing special...they showed us a bunch of screen shots from the new version they're working on and asked us for our reactions. But for our trouble they gave us cookies, popcorn, 3 scores of music used in the program, and $20. Score.

Oh, and Alison and I are going to buy a house. It'll be on 336 Sturgis St. in St. Paul, and it's freaking gorgeous. Look on Alison's FB for pics. Went through an inspection of the place on Thursday and for a 100 year old house, it's in impeccable shape. When the home inspector is impressed, that's a good thing. We take ownership on March 2nd, then will rent it back to the previous owner until May 1st (we didn't want to move in until then b/c our lease isn't done until May 10). We're gonna be landlords for 2 months!

I will try to write again before another month has passed.

It's been awhile

Yup, sure has. Free of the little children for 2 weeks, which is a nice thing indeed. I was starting to get a bit cranky with them, and when that happens you know it's time for a break. Had a good winter concert, though.

So Alison and I saw a house today we really liked. Gonna look at it again with the folks tomorrow. Who knows, we may do something about it.

Looking forward to lots of snow, Christmas, and going up north for New Years.

Did I mention I don't have to work again until Jan. 5th?